The latest offer -- coming only 24 hours after the PM had himself rejected the case for a JPC -- came from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee at an awards function organised by news channel CNN-IBN. Mukherjee, who presided over two unsuccessful meetings with Opposition leaders trying to find a way out of the Parliament stalemate, said that he was ready to take the extra step if the BJP was willing to meet the government halfway.
"If they (the Opposition) assure that there will be a debate, I am ready to call a special session of Parliament before the Budget session so that this issue (setting up of a JPC) is debated," Mukherjee was quoted as saying.
The comment was made in response to BJP president Nitin Gadkari, who said his party would cooperate with the government in the Budget session provided a JPC was appointed.
The government's move was viewed as a forward movement in the JPC vs PAC debate, especially since it had so far refused to even entertain the idea of considering a JPC. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal, who was present at the function, told The Indian Express that the government was never against a debate in Parliament, and if the Opposition was willing, it could have a discussion on "whether to have a JPC or not".
Should the Opposition agree, there could be a four- or five-day special session to debate the usefulness of a JPC, Bansal added.
On Monday, the PM, while rejecting a JPC, had offered to appear before the PAC, even though the latter panel cannot examine ministers. The offer was targeted by the NDA at a rally in Delhi Wednesday -- at which Alliance working chairman L K Advani announced the launch of a campaign against the PM, and leader after leader tore into Singh.
Sushma Swaraj said "Mr Clean" PM would be equally "guilty" if he is indifferent to corruption on his watch. Arun Jaitley demanded the government "set up a JPC or quit".
Advani recalled the 'weak PM' campaign he had waged against Singh during the Lok Sabha elections, and said his "biggest complaint" was that the PM, despite his constitutional rights and the people's mandate, keeps waiting for "what 10 Janpath says".
"The Prime Minister's post is not weak... Manmohan Singh should realise the power of the post he occupies," he said.
Referring to the PM's invocation of Caesar's wife, Jaitley said: "The Prime Minister feels he should be beyond the realm of suspicion... If you want to get away from the realm of suspicion, come before the JPC honestly. Set up the JPC and answer all the questions that we have raised. And if the government doesn't have answers, then quit the post on moral grounds."
Jaitley said the Congress has a history of "covering up" corruption, and referred to the Bofors and Volcker scandals. Every leader who spoke attacked the PM on the appointment of P J Thomas as CVC.
However, even as Jaitley and Swaraj argued that the PM has "many things to hide" (from a JPC), Advani claimed a senior minister had told him the PM had no objection to setting up a JPC, implying that he was overruled by some "powerful" quarters.
During the Parliament stalemate, the Opposition was given to understand that the JPC demand had been accepted, but it did not ultimately happen, Advani said. Only the Prime Minister has the power to give the go-ahead for a JPC probe, he added.
Source: The Indian Express

Singh, who is Deputy Chairman of the Bihar Planning Commission, talks in detail about the "spectacular decline of Kamal Nath". "He is on the road... literally on the road... well you can always hide it by saying highways are after all one black point of the government and they want to make up for it. But I think there is much more than meets the eye... In Kamal Nath's case enough is enough... and I do not think right now he needs another ATM. He has one going on for many years and that is enough for him," Singh is heard saying.
In another tape posted on the Outlook's site, Singh tells Radia, "Every time any question comes up in any house of Parliament, he is more busy trying to appease that questioner to see if he can stay out... perhaps Mukesh has swung it for him... the continuity in the petroleum ministry... Murli is an incompetent minister. He may be a good man. So hopefully there is a chance for Jitendra Prasad to do something."

Contacted for a comment, Singh told The Indian Express, "I categorically deny that it was in any way my intention to have cast any aspersions either on his (Deora's) competence or ability as an important minister of the Union Cabinet. There is also no question of Mr Murli Deora's incompetence in Parliament or elsewhere. There is no question of Mr Ambani or anyone else seeking to secure a Cabinet Berth for Mr Murli Deora."
Deora declined to comment. Singh is also heard expressing surprise at Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma's "spectacular jump". He says, "I know he was close to 10 Janpath but in the meantime he had done a lot to cultivate PM personally, hanging around PMO, Nair's room and PM."
Radia is heard telling Singh that Praful Patel has "destroyed the (aviation) sector. I am sorry I do have a view about it. I do not think he has done justice with the sector."
To this, Singh replies, "He has worked as a minister for Naresh Goyal".
Radia says, "Yes, yes, and now Vijay Mallya at the cost of the national carrier."
Singh told The Indian Express that "the bits of the conversation are selective and blown out of context. They form part of a more general conversation of an analytical nature on the Cabinet well after it was formed."

In another conversation with Niira Radia posted Outlook website, the former chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Tarun Das, says he pitched "big time" for Kamal Nath for the surface transport portfolio.
"Highway construction and road construction is a big priority. He (Kamal Nath) is a doer, he can make his 15 per cent in this. You can do national service and also make money...," says Das in the tapes.
Radia allegedly responds: "This is still an ATM (automated teller machine)."
The conversation, a part of the tapes capturing Radia's role in the allocation of 2G spectrum, which allegedly took place during May 2009 when the Cabinet was being formed by the UPA government, reveals the hectic lobbying for ministerial berths.
Surprised over Nath's appointment as the surface transport minister, Radia said it could be a signal that he had "gone a bit overboard".
Das agreed but pointed out that Nath's predecessor T R Baalu had stalled road construction during his tenure.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Tarun Das said he perceives Nath as a "doer" who has an ability to get things done.
"In exchanging ideas with people about a wish list of responsibilities, I did talk about 'surface transport' for him. When I used 'big time', I mean forceful," he said, adding that his remark about '15 per cent' was irresponsible and unfortunate.
"My public apologies to Mr Nath," he said. Das, who has worked for 45 years with the CII and is consulted by the government on policy matters, purportedly talks to Radia about Anand Sharma's induction as commerce and industry minister. "I know him reasonably well, but not too well. We'll have to brief him...educate him. He's new to this industry area," he said.
In an earlier conversation, he allegedly speaks to Radia about A Raja's chances of getting telecom portfolio again. "Too many people are against him," he said, to which Radia responded, "That's only the Sunil Mittals. I've promised that Raja will speak to Mittal and deal with the matter." Das then agreed to talk it over.
Source: The Indian Express

After 50 per cent of the 21,162 seats in three-tier bodies and half of the governing positions were set aside for women in last month's polls in Kerala, hundreds of women from orthodox families saw themselves in elected positions for the first time.
A study conducted by the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) among members of previous governing bodies had shown that one of the biggest problems faced by women members was lack of support from their families. With a large number of women voted this time, the state decided to step in to correct the situation.
Says KILA Director Dr N Ramakanthan: "We have asked all women representatives to identify two persons each in their families who should undergo the (sensitisation) training, starting next month. A woman representative can suggest two persons from her family depending on who the decision maker is. The person could be the husband, father in-law, mother in-law or brother."
The training would be provided by KILA, which falls under the state Local Administration Department.
Pointing out that Kerala was the first state in the country to look into the "domestic management" of elected women representatives, Ramakanthan says: "As people's representatives, these newly elected women would have to attend several programmes and urgent missions even late at night...

If the male members do not rise to the occasion, even marital relations would collapse."

While a detailed course for the training is being worked out, the KILA Director says it would cover all relevant domestic matters, as well as give an idea to the spouses of women officials about the volume of work involved in governing bodies. Men would be sensitised, for example, about giving space to women to allow them to go through files after office hours.
"The training would also sensitise the men about addressing routine matters to reduce conflicts. For example, women members may have to leave home for a public function after preparing food. Men should shed their ego and serve the food themselves," Ramakanthan says, trying to emphasise the minutest points they were trying to cover in the training.
Welcoming the initiative, Malappuram district panchayat president Suhara Mambadu says: "We have several women representatives who face a lot of pressure from family when they go for public activities. The trouble at home starts a few months after election... Men should be willing to share the domestic responsibilities of elected women. Otherwise, our performance as people's representative would definitely collapse."
Source: The Indian Express

"I am aware of the nervousness in the corporate sector arising out of the powers conferred upon the government authorities to tap the phones for protecting national security and preventing tax evasion and money laundering," Manmohan Singh said at the inaugural session of the India Corporate Week here.
The prime minister's comments came in the light of Tata group chairman Ratan Tata expressing serious reservations over the leakage of his tapped conversations with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia to the media - over which he also moved the Supreme Court.
Manmohan Singh said: "While these powers are needed, they have to be exercised with utmost care and under well defined rules, procedures and mechanism so that they are not misused."
"Legal mechanisms already in place should be stringent for more effective enforcement. I am asking the cabinet secretary to look into these issues and report back to the cabinet within the next month," the prime minister added.
According to a government affidavit in the apex court, Radia's phone was initially tapped following a complaint that she was allegedly an agent of foreign intelligence agencies and had amassed Rs.300 crore in a span of just nine years.
Later, the scope and duration of the wiretap was extended when some conversations were found "sensitive" in the matter relating to award of airwaves to telecom companies, the affidavit said.
The award of telecom airwaves is now being termed a major scandal by the opposition, which stalled proceedings of the entire winter session of parliament demanding a probe into it by a joint parliamentary panel.
DMK leader A. Raja even had to resign as communications minister last month when the official audit institution indicted him in what is called the alleged second generation (2G) spectrum scam.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India had said Raja's policy had caused a notional loss of billions of rupees to the exchequer by resorting to giving airwaves away to telecom companies on a first-come-first-served basis, rather than through an auction.
Source: IANS

It is almost as if he took a page out of the ISI/LeT disinformation manual by trying to imbue the Mumbai terror attacks of the night of 26/11 and the killing of ATS Chief Hemant Karkare with a domestic/Hindu terror tinge.
This neatly segues in with the anti-India fiction brigade across the border (led by Zaid Hamid) who have been, since the first moments of 26/11, characterising it as a carefully stage-managed "drama" by the right wing forces in India to defame Pakistan, and to terrorise and eliminate officers who are investigating Hindu terror connections.
How come, they asked, that within the first few hours of the Mumbai attack, the head of the ATS Hemant Karkare (who was also heading the inquiry into the Malegaon blast, where it was alleged that some radical Hindu groups were involved) was shot dead?
Mere coincidence, you would say. But not for the India baiters from across the border. The killing of Karkare, along with two other senior officers, within hours of the attack; plus the "saffron band" worn by Kasab - indicating that he was an Hindu/non-Muslim(?); and that they "did not look at all like Pakistanis", were enough to convince the rabid elements across the border that it was an "Indian drama". And, believe me I am not making this up.
These are the same elements who questioned the 9/11 attack, which, according to them, was also an event stage-managed by the "Jews" and the right wing in America to malign the Muslims and use it as a pretext to invade Muslim lands and control its resources. Read: Oil.
However, since David Headley's (the LeT operative) arrest the chatter had died down among the conspiracy theorists, but now Digvijay Singh's statement that Karkare had called him only hours before the Mumbai attack to tell him that he feared for his own life from Hindu extremists, only lends fuel for a fresh bout of conspiracy cries from the anti-India elements in our neighbourhood. (This claim of Singh's has been contested by a leading daily in India which said that a perusal of the phone records show that no such call was made; this corroborates Karkare's wife's claims that indeed no such call was made; see related stories).
The Congress party has distanced itself from Singh's statement saying that the party "had nothing to do with as it was a conversation between two individuals". That is neither here nor there. That one of the seniormost party leaders was insinuating a domestic angle to what has widely been accepted as cross border terrorism should have elicited a more unambiguous response from the Congress.
If the party believes that there was some credence to the Singh statement it should have gone on record to say that Singh's insinuations should be probed to unravel the facts; or if it believed that Singh was off course, it should have at the least issued a strong reprimand, especially there is not an iota of evidence to show that an internal hand was at play in Karkare's tragic death.
Is Singh's allegation unwitting or off the cuff? Strangely it is the former American Ambassador to India at the time who seems to have clued-in on to the plausible explanation.
In his cables to Washington from New Delhi, since revealed by WikiLeaks, the Ambasador was on the Karkare issue but was responding to an earlier avatar of Singh, namely A R Antulay, then the Union Minority Affairs minister. The senior Congress leader Antulay claimed that there were "Hindutva forces" involved in the 26/11 attacks. Given the public uproar that the remark caused coming so close to the events, Home Minister P Chidambaram ticked-off his party colleague saying that there was no evidence for such a conclusion and said he "regretted" Antulay's comments.
These are the relevant portions of what Mulford wrote to Washington, days after the attack, as revealed by WikiLeaks:
"While the killing of three high level law enforcement officers during the Mumbai attacks is a remarkable coincidence, the Congress Party's initial reaction to Antulay's outrageous comments was correct. But as support seemed to swell among Muslims for Antulay's unsubstantiated claims, crass political opportunism swayed the thinking of some Congress Party leaders."
What's more, the party made the cynical political calculation to subtly support the conspiracy theory even after its recent emboldening state elections victories. The party chose to pander to Muslims' fears, providing an impetus for those in the Muslim community who will continue to play up the conspiracy theory.
While cooler heads eventually prevailed within the Congress leadership, the idea that the party would entertain such outlandish claims proved once again that many party leaders are still wedded to the old identity politics. The seventy-nine year old Antulay was probably bewildered to find that his remarks, similar in vain to what he would have routinely made in the past to attack the BJP, created such a furor this time.
Considering that the Ambassador would not have ever imagined that his cables would be public one day, his treatise can be taken as a reasonably objective take on the Congress' penchant for identity politics.
Now that Digvijay has taken the Antulay route on the 26/11 attacks, is it anybody's guess that Digvijay has once again given precedence to the lure of the vote bank over facts and sagacity?
Source: E Jayakrishnan, India Syndicate

He termed as "politically motivated" the efforts of GSM lobbyists, including Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, saying their endeavour was to embarrass the Prime Minster Manmohan Singh and the ruling party.
Taking the powerful GSM operators head on for what he termed as holding of spectrum free of cost, Tata said, "Recent policy (allocation of licences in 2008) broke the powerful cartel which has been holding back competition and delaying the implementation of policies."
Coming out in support of the government telecom policy, which is being litigated in the Supreme Court, Tata said, "We should all note that many of the flip-flops in the telecom policies occurred during the BJP regime", an oblique reference that Chandrashekhar is close to the BJP.
Tata's strong comments came in an open letter to former telecom entrepreneur and Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar who had hit out Tata for allegedly not being transparent and being one of the biggest beneficiaries of the government telecom policy.
"Your affiliation to a particular political party is well-known and it appears that political aspirations and their endeavour to embarrass the Prime Minister and the ruling party may well have been the motivation behind your letter". Tata told Chandrasekhar.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja or for that matter any minister has not extended any advantage to group company Tata Teleservices, he said.
He further noted that the government auditor the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has not ascribed any value to 48 new GSM licences issued to incumbents during 2004-2008 and 65 mhz of additional spectrum.
Ratan Tata said he "fully supports the ongoing the investigation" - into the 2G spectrum allocation scam - and also "believes that the period of probe should be extended to 2001".
In an open letter to the Tata Group recently, Chandrashekhar said the company received out-of-turn spectrum causing losses of Rs 19,074.8 crore to the exchequer as estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General, he said.
In the letter, Chandrasekhar had also said the government had received 575 applications for 2G spectrum by October 1, 2007. By specifying an arbitrary cut-off date of September 25, former telecom minister A Raja processed only 122 applications received till that date. Further, 110 were rejected and 343 applications were put in abeyance. The dual technology policy was announced 19 days later and the Tatas put in their applications around October 22.
According to Chandrasekhar, Tatas' application went three weeks after the 575 2G applications were received. "Today, Tatas already have GSM spectrum allocated and GSM service launched in most of the circles. But the 343 applications submitted three weeks before the Tata Group have neither been processed nor have any chance of ever being processed - so much for First-Come, First-Serve," he wrote in his letter.
Source: The Indian Express

It's learnt that Congress troubleshooters carried out an internal exercise last week only to realise that the ruling combine will effectively be in a minority in any JPC. Even though a JPC is constituted on the basis of proportional representation depending on each party's strength in Parliament, the UPA found itself in a rather peculiar situation.
On their own, the Congress and its UPA allies represented in the government account for 259 seats in Lok Sabha and 91 in Rajya Sabha. Their majority in Lok Sabha is made up by parties extending outside support like the SP, BSP and RJD.
Back of the envelope calculations -- the government did so in a bid to get Parliament to function -- showed that in a 30-member JPC, the Congress along with UPA constituents in the government would get only 14 members.
This would mean representatives of parties like SP and BSP could become key players. The BSP's stunning silence on the issue and SP's participation in thronging the well of the House made the Congress a touch nervous.
A JPC without assured majority control, sources said, raised all sorts of concerns like whether the PM and other senior ministers would be embarrassed through repeated questioning. Even though the chair would belong to the UPA, there could be constant political pressure and the Committee itself could turn into a "political weapon" against the Treasury.
When it comes to forming a JPC, the convention is that members are drawn from both Houses in a 2:1 ratio favouring the Lok Sabha. Since it is based on proportional representation, the ruling combine should have a majority. But in this case, the UPA relies on outside support to make up the last fraction of its majority and that is where the complication is.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while staking claim, had submitted a list of parties with a total tally of 315 MPs supporting the UPA. These included those supporting from outside. Within the government, the numbers are: Congress 208, Trinamool Congress 19, DMK 18, NCP 9, National Conference 3 and Muslim League 2. This works out to 259 in a House of 545. The rest were made up by SP, BSP and others.
In case of the Upper House, the total tally of parties represented in the government works out to only 91 out of a total strength of 243 members. The other twist is that a party like Lalu Prasad's RJD may not find any representation because it has only four members in Lok Sabha. On the other hand, Samajwadi Party with 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha, BSP with 21 will definitely get representation in any JPC. Herein lies the trouble for the Congress.
The numbers suggest that representatives of the political parties represented in the government will be 7 in case of a 15-member JPC; 14 in case of a 30-member JPC; and only 21 in a 45-member JPC.
Three of the four JPCs constituted by the government in the past -- Bofors (1987), securities scam (1992) and stock market scam (2001) -- had 30 members while the 2003 JPC into the cola case had 15 members.
Source: Agencies

BJP leader L K Advani said the UPA government was "indifferent" to corruption. He claimed even if the allegation was likely to reach the "high levels of political office... the government was absolutely adamant" on not ordering a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the spectrum scam.
As Parliament remained deadlocked for the 15th working day, the NDA declared there was no going back on the issue of a JPC probe. It, however, indicated that it has no plans to bring a no-confidence motion against the government on the issue.
"2G scam is a multi-dimensional scam, undermining democracy itself... Business houses talking of composition of the government... in view of this nature... for a thorough probe and to bring all guilty to book, nothing short of a JPC can do justice to the task," L K Advani said.

Addressing a press conference along with leaders of Opposition Sushma Swaraj (Lok Sabha) and Arun Jaitley (Rajya Sabha) as also leaders of Shiv Sena and Akali Dal, he said the government has not been able to convince anyone in the Opposition why a JPC was not needed.
Accusing the government of provoking it to bring a no-confidence motion when only a year has passed since the Lok Sabha polls, he suggested that such a course of action was not planned, noting that "every MP wants to serve the full term".
Besides, he said, he was for a fixed term for legislatures in the country and have also met the Prime Minister and Leader of the Lok Sabha in this regard. "The government cannot seriously expect the Opposition to accept the CBI and the CVC are the appropriate institutions which are capable of an honest investigation into the monumental 2G spectrum allocation scam", he said.
Advani said the NDA has decided to launch a "crusade" to mobilise public opinion against corruption. He appealed to other Opposition parties which have supported the demand for a JPC to join the endeavour.
"Why is the government running scared of a Joint Parliamentary Committee? The committee will be headed by a government nominee," Advani asked and told the Congress-led coalition that the responsibility for the parliamentary stalemate rests squarely on its shoulders.
Alleging that the autonomy and independence of the CBI has been "seriously compromised", he said the investigations by the agency "no longer inspire confidence". "It has become a convenient instrument in the hands of the Government either to whitewash certain investigations or to harass political opponents", the BJP veteran said.
Noting that the Central Vigilance Commission is the internal vigilance authority of the Government, he said "the appointment of its chief has completely demolished the credibility of the CVC as an institution".
"A person chargesheeted in a corruption case, who attempted to deny the CVC and CAG its authority to question the impropriety in the 2G spectrum allotment, was appointed as its head," he alleged.
He said that the Opposition was no longer interested in merely talking out the issue and it wants action. "We had to resort to an extraordinary step of a parliamentary stalemate when scam after scam were being pushed under the carpet by the Government."
Replying to a number of queries concerning corruption in the BJP-ruled Karnataka and the allegations against Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, he merely said: "We are dealing with it and are confident that we will deal with it... There is no comparison."
"What can we do when we do not have so many corrupt people", he remarked when asked to react to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's poser that when her party was taking action in regard to corruption why the BJP was silent on the Karnataka CM.
Meanwhile, MPs from non-NDA Opposition parties, including the Left, would meet on Monday to strengthen their demand for a JPC probe. In a bid to intensify pressure on the government, they would also hold an hour-long sit-in inside the Parliament precincts on Tuesday.
This was decided at a meeting of the leaders of CPI(M), CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, TDP, AIADMK, JD(S), MDMK, BJD, AGP and RLD in Parliament this afternoon.
"Leaders of 11 parties today decided to hold a general body meeting of all their MPs from Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha on Monday. They are expected to adopt a resolution that the government, by not accepting our JPC demand, is squarely responsible for the logjam in Parliament. As the two Houses are not functioning, we have been deprived of the opportunity to raise burning issues affecting the people like price rise and unemployment," CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia told PTI.
He said the MPs would also hold a protest sit-in near the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the Parliament premises. Eighty MPs of these parties had last week marched to Rashtrapati Bhavan from the Parliament House and submitted a memorandum to President Pratibha Patil urging her to "advise" the government to accept the Opposition's demand for a JPC probe.
Terming the 2G spectrum scam as the "biggest corruption after Independence", these parties said that JPC was required not only to find out who was behind it and punish them but also to probe how the system was subjected to "massive manipulation".
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury had then said that it would have required only Rs 1.10 lakh crore to give the entire population 35 kg rice at the rate of Rs 3 a kg. "The money could have been used to eliminate hunger from the country", he had said.
Source: Agencies

With the state gearing up for assembly polls next year, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is eager to reach out to as many people as possible, particularly the younger generation.
"It is a social networking site. I use it to remain in touch with my friends and comrades. It's true that I may be tagged in someone else's album. It is true to an extent that it is being used as a means of propaganda and communication," admitted Students' Federation of India (SFI) state secretary Kaustav Chatterjee, one of the young faces of the party. SFI is the student wing of the CPI-M.
Front-ranking party leaders like Sujan Chakraborty, Moinul Hassan, Samik Lahiri, Manab Mukherjee and state Industry Minister Nirupam Sen are regular visitors on Facebook. The site is not only being used to reach out to the young generation but also to serve as a podium of propaganda against archrival Trinamool Congress and its chief Mamata Banerjee.
The wall of Manab Mukherjee's Facebook account, for example, includes articles related to the alleged Maoist-Trinamool violence against CPI-M workers, and a picture of Mamata Banerjee chatting with the pro-Maoist tribal body People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) convenor Chhatradhar Mahato.
In the late 1980s and early 90s, the CPI-M was burning with ideological fury against computers, saying it was a bourgeoisie conspiracy to take away jobs from the hapless proletariat.
But the party, which has ruled Bengal since 1977 and was famously derided for being "on the wrong side of history", has taken a remarkable U-turn. The CPI-M now showcases the information technology sector as a success story in its industrialisation efforts.
With the CPI-M-led ruling Left Front going through tough times following a series of electoral debacles recently, the communists are leaving no stone unturned to rebuild their dwindling support base. Even if it means camping on digital highways.
However, leaders maintain that joining Facebook is their personal decision and there was no party diktat. "It's not a party decision, it's my individual decision to join Facebook. I am using it as an effective tool of two-way communication where the young generation can reach out to me and I can also reach out to them," state Tourism Minister Manab Mukherjee said, taking pride in his friend list of 104.
"I do have a Facebook account, but frankly speaking I don't have much time to visit the site. I do it for personal reasons. But I think if we can use Facebook as an effective communication tool, then it will be really helpful," CPI-M state committee member Sujan Chakraborty told IANS.
State committee member and former Lok Sabha member Samik Lahiri said he used his Facebook account primarily to stay in touch with friends, but sometimes people ask questions regarding current issues.
Kaustav Chatterjee agreed that Facebook is partially used for political campaigns, but claimed his party had never opposed computers per se.
"But it is not true that we were against computers. At that time we had said we are not against computers, but automation should not trigger a layoff," said Chatterjee, whose profile album has pictures of the slain comrades of the CPI-M.
Analysts say CPI-M leaders joining social networking sites was a welcome development, but it was too late. "It's good they have now realised that computers are not our enemy. If you see the current situation, the CPI-M boasts of the IT sector, which is based on computers. But I don't feel they'll be able to attract the young generation by joining social networking sites," noted economist Dipankar Dasgupta told IANS.
"The younger generation has seen the CPI-M from its birth and the anti-incumbency factor is highest among the group. So the Marxists will not reap dividends by canvassing through sites like Facebook. Actually, it's too late for the CPI-M," political scientist Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury told IANS.
Source: IANS

"This is no way to deal with the issue. You go to the Supreme Court and tell the court that he will not inquire into... then what is the CVC for? He is the head of an institution, he is supposed to guide, supervise and monitor the probe and if he is going to do this (recuse himself) then what is he for? This is a way to bail him out from the present situation and to bail out the government from embarrassment," senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu told reporters outside Parliament House.
His comments come after the Centre informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning that Thomas has offered to recuse himself from supervising the case. Later, Thomas asserted that he would continue to be the Chief Vigilance Commissioner.
Naidu said this (recusing himself) will not carry conviction with anybody and added "there is no other way other than the CVC resigning". The Supreme Court had on Tuesday questioned the tenability of P J Thomas supervising the CBI's probe into the 2G scandal as he himself was Telecom Secretary at the relevant point of time.
After volunteering not to monitor probe, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Seetharaman said the appointment "itself was not on sound footing". CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat said Thomas' offer to recuse himself from supervising the CBI in the 2G spectrum case was inadequate and insisted on his resignation.
"The court should once again provide evidence of his intention to cover up the scam. Firstly, appointing a person to the post of CVC knowing that he would have to look into the 2G scam... who was deeply involved in that scam or cover up of that scam is itself unethical", the left party leader told reporters here.
She demanded that the government should at least ensure that the concerned individual resigns and said, "It's a question of resignation, not recusing himself. Therefore, this is further evidence of the government's lack of ethics or morality in this case".
Asked if the CVC's offer to recuse himself was of any purpose and if the two matters (Thomas' alleged role in the matter while he was Telecom secretary and him being part of the probe into the case) were connected, Karat said, "It is deeply connected and that is why we are saying that to have a proper, impartial inquiry, JPC is the best method".
She said the government's willingness to order a JPC was "further evidence of a huge cover-up on the 2G spectrum scam". Questioning the appointment of Thomas for the top post, Karat said, "How can the government appoint such an individual... now, even the Supreme court has commented on him".
Noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani said the Supreme Court has said enough which should make a responsible person resign. "Should he resign is a matter of the individual concerned. The Supreme Court has no power to make him resign. The court has said enough which should make a responsible person resign," he said.
Defending the government's stand in the Supreme Court, Congress said the matter should be left to the apex court to decide. "Since the matter is under consideration in the Supreme Court and if at all the government has put something in the affidavit, it must have considered all implications," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told reporters.
Asked about his party's stand on whether Thomas should quit, Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhyay said, "I will not give any opinion as it will have to be decided collectively within the UPA. We are part of the UPA, so individual opinion will not matter. The issue is subjudice too."
Source: Agencies